In the commercial preparation of food, it is common to use a conveyor belt system to efficiently move the food along a particular predefined path for a variety of purposes. For example, large scale food processing systems may use ovens, breaders, fryers or other processing machinery having an endless conveyor belt on which food products are positioned to pass through the processing machiner. It is an unavoidable consequence of a cooking, frying, breading or other food processing operation that the conveyor belt becomes coated with food residue. These food deposits are generally undesirable in that they may interfere with the flexibility of the conveyor belt, may burn and cause smoke within a cooking oven or fryer, or may become stuck to or impart an undesirable flavor to the food being processed. Also, if not removed from the conveyor belt, the food residue may become cooked onto the conveyor belt thereby becoming very difficult to remove without shutting the oven down.
Various methods of cleaning an endless conveyor belt in such equipment have been developed. It is generally known for example, to pass the conveyor belt through a reservoir containing a washing solution in an attempt to clean the food residue therefrom. It has been found effective to spray the moving conveyor belt with one or more high pressure streams of a cleaning fluid such as water or a mixture of soap and water. Although more effective in cleaning the conveyor belt, such high pressure spray cleaning results in a large amount of over spray of cleaning fluid into the processing plant and onto surrounding equipment or materials. In certain applications, the large amount of over spray produced by such pressurized fluid belt washers may be of no consequence, but still provides a relatively inefficient method of cleaning the belt. However, in other environments, such as in food processing environments the over spray of the cleaning fluid is highly undesirable due to strict regulations imposed on food processors, which may require that any cleaning operation be done separately from the food processing operations. Additionally, in the baking of breads and the like, over spray creates high humidity in the baking plant that can cause flour to clump or mold.
Another problem associated with the commercial cooking of food products is the waste of food products caused when a product or portion thereof cooked or otherwise processed becomes stuck to the conveyor belt. Product sticking to the belt also requires cleaning as described above. Currently, coating of the conveyor belt with a non-stick type compound, such as a two percent solution of Lesathin in water, by dipping the belt through a dip tank or bath of the non-stick coating solution. These coating systems for dipping the conveyor belt result in a large amount of wasted coating solution through spillage and leakage. In addition to spillage and leakage, the belt picks up an excessive amount of the non-stick coating which may drip onto the surrounding area when the belt leaves the bath. This waste of non-stick coating encourages the use of less expensive, highly diluted, non-stick solutions which are not as effective as more expensive or concentrated non-stick compounds. The technique of dipping a belt into a solution also cannot uniformly and accurately coat the belt with a predetermined coating thickness with such release agents or non-stick type of materials. There has therefore been found a need for an apparatus or method that allows for the cost effective application of the more effective, higher quality non-stick coatings.